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Many politicians, like Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, operate on two tracks regarding terrorism. They correctly insist that it must not alter American life, then insist that suspects somehow can't be brought to justice under the guidance of the Constitution.

Those senators and other people claim that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, should be handled as an "enemy combatant" rather than tried in federal court. Doing so would exempt federal prosecutors from certain constitutional due-process requirements, allow authorities to interrogate Tsarnaev without notifying him of his rights, and shift the trial to a military tribunal.

The Justice Department, after questioning Tsarnaev without counsel about the prospect of any potential imminent terrorist actions, correctly decided Wednesday to give the suspect a Miranda warning and charge him with federal crimes.

It's not clear why some politicians and others lack faith in the federal courts, which competently have handled scores of terrorism-related cases. Included on that roster is the case of Timothy McVeigh, who not only engaged in terrorism but attacked the federal government itself when, on April 19, 1995, he set off a truck bomb that killed 168 people and wounded more than 800 at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He and two accomplices were tried and found guilty in federal court in 1997 and McVeigh was executed in June 2001.

The distinguishing difference in this case apparently is that Tsarnaev is foreign-born. Yet he is a citizen whose rights are clear under the Constitution, despite the horrendous acts he allegedly committed with his older brother, Tamerlan. And federal courts also are perfectly capable of handling prosecutions even of foreign-born, non-citizen terrorism suspects, which they have done many times.

Dishonoring and distrusting our own values and the institutions that uphold them is not the way to fight terrorism. The administration is on the mark in relying on those values and institutions in the pursuit of justice.

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